


To See and Be Seen

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [130]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Edwardian, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Lingerie, M/M, Multi, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 08:42:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15882564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: The mask doesn’t fit properly, but the damn things never do.





	To See and Be Seen

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Masquerade (a character pretends to be someone else, or something they're not). Prompt from this [generator](http://bleep0bleep.tumblr.com/prompts).

The mask doesn’t fit properly, but the damn things never do. It isn’t really the point of the evening, the mask, because if someone’s staring at his face then he’s done a poor job of arranging himself elsewhere, the places where it really counts.

He should be nervous. Tony knows this. He’s made a lot of questionable decisions in his day, taken lots of stupid chances, but this one might be the least reasoned.

He ties one more knot to hold his mask fast and then gives up; any tighter, and the blood flow to his brain might be broken and after all of his preparation, all of his careful planning, to keel over before he even gets out of his rooms would be a goddamn shame.

He ignores his shivers, the nascent bloom of shame, and reaches for his cloak, loses himself in it. Steps out of his chamber door, the velvet bag with his footwear strung over his wrist.

“Jarvis!” he calls.

“Sir.” The voice swells up the staircase. “The carriage is waiting.”

There’s a flutter of panic--this is actually happening--and Tony wishes to god he’d finished off the brandy Jarvis had so thoughtfully set on his dresser after dinner. But he hadn’t and he’s on the verge of being late and whatever courage he’s managed to screw up in his gut is what he must thrive on. He must.

“Sir!” His man’s voice is sharper now, with a tinge of reproach. “It’s now or never, Mr. Stark.”

Tony takes to the stairs, grateful he’s still wearing his boots; god knows what inclines will be like in his party footwear. Well. Hopefully his hosts have thought of that. That’s their reputation, after all: considerate, discrete, and thoughtfully blind.

He rushes past Jarvis and ducks into the street, hurls himself rather inelegantly into the waiting carriage. Jarvis comes to the handsome door, closes it. Looks Tony square in the eye.

“I understand these affairs can run rather...late,” he says measuredly. “That said, if you are not home by noon tomorrow, I shall become concerned.”

Tony tosses a salute. “I shan’t dally then, shall I? Even if I meet someone especially interesting.”

Jarvis almost smiles, a wholly remarkable thing. “Even then, sir. Indeed.”

 

*****

The ride across town and out into the country is nerve-racking. Mostly because it’s so bloody cold. How on earth, Tony thinks, fidgeting this way and that, tucking his cloak in to every exposed corner, do women do this every day?

Admittedly, though, he knew few women who went out in this kind of attire alone. All right, fair fact: he knew none. But then, he thought, maybe that’s why they piled so many layers of lace and dresswear on top of their underthings; they were staving off the damn cold.

Maybe he should’ve done the same. Maybe he was supposed to have come similarly dressed.

But no--the invitation, such as it was, had been rather specific. Passed underhand and by word of discriminate mouths, the picture it painted as to required attire left little room for doubt. Left little room for anything, really. Tony stifled a laugh, the sort with the edge of hysterics. Oh god, what the hell was he doing flitting out to a party like this, alone, where he wouldn’t know anybody? Or at least, wouldn’t know if he did?

He poked again at his mask, a beribboned, lace-bordered affair, and felt in all honesty rather silly. No one would recognize him in this get-up, surely; would he know anyone from the club or, gods forbid, from the bank were they to be similarly attired? His cheeks heated helpfully at the thought. He was hard-pressed to know how he could. Although there were a few he wouldn’t mind seeing him dressed in this way, so much of his skin bared, so much that might as well be, obscured as it was only by the flimsiest scraps of silk and lace.

He was grateful for the damnable cold, then, for the thought of one such man made his blood run south: Steve Rogers, a fellow American, though that is where the similarities stopped. Tony was trim and wiry, not a weakling but not a man who wore his strength overtly. Rogers, on the other hand, was build rather like a good house: broad and squared, a bulwark against the wind. Where Tony was dark, Steve was blond, the sort of corn-fed blue eyes and smile that would have irked Tony were they not so sincere. And then there was the matter of Steve’s hands: mitts, they were, more like paws of a lion, but so delicate when it came to their movement. Rogers had a light touch when it came to the customers, when it came to counting bills, as deft with a pen as it looked like he’d be with an ax or a hammer. And his face, lord--all this, and he was beautiful, too. Beautiful and untouchable, being one of Tony’s employees, and the more he found himself drawn to Rogers, the more concerted an effort Tony made to put distance between he and Steve, the more aloof he acted in the lobby, the more curt he was on those rare occasions when he had to call Rogers off the floor and into his office.

“Mr. Stark,” Steve would say, his cheeks already tinged red. “Mr. Rhodes said you wanted to speak with me?”

And Tony would play at being the boss, at tinging his words with ice, at making a show of not caring for Rogers at all.

“There’s an issue with one of the Romanov accounts,” he’d say, imperious, pointing at the chair opposite his desk. “Perhaps you’d care to explain?”

It wasn’t that Steve made mistakes--he never did--it was that he had an acute, careful mind, one that was capable of untangling other people’s messes, of untying long series of confusing and interlocking financial knots. But even after three years at the bank, under Tony’s employ, Rogers still seemed certain, always, that somehow, the error in question was always his.

There had been times when the man’s great blond head was bent over a ledger, white teeth biting at a flushed lip, eyes moving like hawks up and down great exact columns, that Tony had found himself clinging to his chair, doing all that he could to restrain himself from doing something, saying something, that would put their relationship, such as it was, so far beyond repair that at the very least, there would be scandal. And at worst, Rogers would leave for another firm, and he would not have even moments of great frustration like this to treasure.

Tony turns his face to the night, to the lights, to the great house they’re at last approaching. Oh, he thinks, something in him stirring, if only Rogers were here. What a lovely evening this would make.

He laughs to himself, reaches down to pull off his boots and exchange them for tottering heels. As if someone like Steve--so wholesome, so earnest, so quick to bloody blush--would frequent a place as outlandish as this.

No, the universe, such as it was, could hardly be quite so kind.

 

*****

The inside of the party is surprisingly genteel. Albeit on the whole underdressed. But then, that’s rather the point of the evening, isn't it?

Not everyone is dressed as he is, in panties and stockings and lace. Some are in suits, looking as if they just stepped from a proper sit-down supper. A few are even in tails, which is rather fetching. There are those, here and there, who’ve already formed a pair, suits and stockings tangled in comfortable chairs. But most whom Tony passes give him an appreciative glance or three, their eyes spreading over him like butter over warm toast, and it makes him stand a little taller, helps him shake the last of his nerves away. Everyone is ostensibly here for the same reason, aren’t they? To see and be seen. Albeit from behind the relative safety of a mask.

“May I bring you some wine?” a man says on his left, oozing out of an alcove.

“No,” Tony says. “I’d prefer brandy.”

The man--shorter than Tony, sandy-haired, in a sneer and a suit with worn cuffs--steps in front of Tony, pours his eyes over the silken stretch over Tony’s cock. “Of course,” he purrs. “For you, lovely, I’ll fetch the whole bottle.”

Tony feels an itch of irritation. “Why? Do you think I’ll need such sustenance to remain in your company?”

The man comes up short. “Do I--?”

Tony brushes past him, moves towards the heart of the house, towards a stir of noise and of light. “No, sir,” he calls, “you don’t.”

At the center of the house lies an indoor garden, a botanical wonderland. There are chaises scattered about, tucked between bright beautiful flowers, and above, the night sky beams at them, winking from behind a ceiling of glass.

He moves about for a while, taking it all in, fighting back a grin, and it seems that everyone about him is smiling. Despite the oddities in their outfits, the unfamiliar masks, most of the men that he passes, nods to, smiles at, seem at ease here, almost at home. Indeed, his own tension, the everyday stiff of his back, has faded away, replaced by a warmth like golden honey, and slowly, slowly, as he watched men kiss and men sigh and men writhe happily in each other’s arms, Tony comes to know that he feels more like himself here in this strange, otherworldly place than he has in his everyday life for years.

In time, someone guides Tony to a seat and someone else brings him a snifter and soon, there are admirers on either side of him and a third at his feet. The room is awash in laughter, in murmured chatter, in aching sighs, and it is not so very long before the man on his left--dark curls, a fine suit, and an emerald mask--is petting the inside of Tony’s thigh, strumming his fingers between garter and silk, and kissing the side of his neck very gently, softly, as if he’s afraid Tony might break.

“Shall we leave you?” the man on his right asks, tucking the question into Tony’s ear. “We have no desire to intrude.”

Tony turns his head--what a damned stupid question--and kisses him, gets a hand in the long, straw-colored ponytail and pulls, much to the man’s apparent delight.

He’s large, the one with the ponytail, broad-shouldered with big thighs and hands almost as big as Tony’s head, and when he spreads one over Tony’s chest, it’s a pleasant weight, a real one, one that pins Tony to the earth. He kisses like Steve would, Tony thinks, his eyes full of stars; careful and slow, considerate, his tongue turning in warm, eager circles that match the stretch of his hand.

The dark-haired man is nuzzling his ear, running his fingers bold over the swell of Tony’s cock, the heat of it trapped perfectly behind rose-colored lace, and the beauty of this is that there is nothing beyond this, no expectations, no questions, no need: just the turn of these two men’s appreciative caresses all over his body, both of him chasing his pleasure with no thought of their own.

And then the third man, the one at Tony’s feet, stirs to life--how could he have forgotten?--tucks his shaggy head between Tony’s legs and chases his tongue between the other man’s fingers, dampening Tony’s panties with slick, hungry strokes and Tony makes a sound he doesn’t recognize, something desperate and primal and pleased and tangles his hand in the third man’s collar, shoves his hips towards that magnificent, greedy mouth.

Between the three of them, they unspool him, unwind Tony Stark piece by piece until he’s bared to them, his panties tugged aside, one kissing him, one biting his nipples, the other sucking fervent on his cock, and when he comes, it’s with a loud, piteous cry, a wail that makes the three of them clutch him, hold on to him hard as he shakes and shudders and empties himself out.

“Sweetheart,” the big one murmurs.

“Oh, god,” the dark-haired one groans.

The one at his feet kisses his balls, bites gently at the soft turn of his thigh. “So sweet,” he rumbles, his accent rough. “Aren’t you, my dear? So very милая.”

They stay with him for a while, curled around him like large, happy cats, and when they seem convinced of his contentedness, they each kiss him and stroke his hair and move along on their way--other cities to conquer, Tony thinks happily, half-pitched over on the now-empty settee. Other silken towers to drive out of their bloody minds.

He supposes he should get up, too, should try to make some more friends; the evening is young, after all, and in another few minutes, he should be ready to appreciate attention again. But it’s easier to keep his eyes closed, to breathe in the warm spring smells of the flowers, of his own spend, and stay wrapped in himself for a while, pleasantly alone in a room full of company.

“Excuse me,” a voice says overhead. “You look as though you need something to lean on. May I offer my services and sit down?”

Tony opens his eyes a tad, gets a glimpse of a well-tailored coat and blue eyes peeking out from behind a pink and white mask. “‘Fraid I’m not much good for talking right now,” he gets out.

A chuckle. “So I see. Hence my offering myself as a bulwark. Someone to hold you upright, as it were. I won’t judge you on your lack of vocabulary. So far as I observed, it was very well earned.”

Tony waves the man down and tries not to blush. “You, ah. You observed that, huh?”

The man settles at his side and opens his arms, draws Tony gently against him. “Myself and much of the assembled here. You were rather extraordinary.”

There’s something about the man’s voice that’s familiar. Something. He has a soft London accent, precisely posh, but there’s an air of fragility to it, like one good kick and the whole thing would tip over and crack. A Northerner who’s trying to hide it? A Scotsman doing his best to neuter his brogue? Tony sighs and leans back against the man’s rather wonderful chest. These damn English and their class warfare nonsense. It’s one of the few things he misses about America; there, no matter what their mother tongue, every man can be equal if he makes money enough.

“Is this the first time you’ve attended this gathering?”

“Mmmm. Is. Does it show?”

“No, no. On the contrary.” The man smoothes a hand through Tony’s hair, careful not to dislodge the mask. “You seem quite at ease.”

“How about you? Your first time?”

He can feel the man shiver. “It is, yes.”

“What do you think so far?”

The man’s arm tightens around Tony’s waist, wide fingers chasing over bare skin. “I think,” the man says softly, “that it’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Is that why you’ve just been watching?” Tony raises his head, touches his lips to the man’s neck. “You come here to look, not to touch?”

“I don’t believe that I said that.”

There’s something so earnest about him, so innocent. It stokes a fire in Tony. Oh. Oh no.

This man reminds him of Steve. He could _be_ Steve, really, if Steve were British and owned a suit this nice and was the kind of person who came to places like this out in the middle of nowhere, a house full of strangers looking for sex.

Steve would never do that. Steve would never come here. But hell, he’s wearing a mask. Tony can pretend this big, pretty man is anyone he wants him to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this got super trope-y and silly. But in my defense: it was all in the prompt.


End file.
